Radiance
by Tifaching
Summary: Hell's almost everything Dean expected.  Hell!fic, disturbing imagery.


For Spn 30 snapshots: Table 1 (elemental), prompt 11: Light

Summary: Hell's _almost _everything Dean expected.

Warning: Hellfic. Disturbing imagery.

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><p>Dean thought it would be darker in hell. He'd researched the pit in the months before his deal came due, and every text he could find-ancient and new-said the same words with the same illustrations. Hell was vast and dim, a pit of despair lit only by lakes of hellfire, and the damned souls condemned there suffered their torment in darkness. <p>

_See, asshole? This is why research is Sam's gig. Because when you try to do it you find information that's totally bogus. Hell's dark. Right. _

Dean was beginning to wish he _could_ suffer his torment in darkness. He had no idea how long it'd been since that bitch's hellhounds had ripped him to shreds, but he'd spent every moment of it in light so bright it was like being under a bank of fluorescent bulbs. He felt like he was hanging on meathooks in a freakin' Walmart and closing his eyes shot his equilibrium to shit and made him feel like he was falling. Given the choice between annoyingly bright light and falling, Dean kept his eyes open.

The good thing about it being so light was that he could always see what was coming. Of course the bad thing about it being so light was that he could see it coming from a long way off and there was nothing he could do but hang there and wait for it, wondering what it would be this time and how it would fuck him up. The first thing he would see would be movement, far up the chains. Gradually the movement would become forms traveling-fast, slow, it didn't matter. Eventually they would get to him. When the attackers had moved far enough down the chains they'd cast shadows on the walls, and Dean kept himself from useless begging by staring at those distorted images to try and figure out what was coming. He'd gotten pretty good at rats- their beady eyes shining as they scurried down to chew the meat from his bones. Snakes were easy too, undulating down the chains to sink poisoned fangs into every inch of his flesh. Insects were still hard though. He couldn't see them coming until they were right on top of him. Too small to cast a decent shadow.

Sometimes whatever was up there didn't even bother to come down the chains. They'd just start pulling them from above, starting Dean rocking on the hooks, dragging them through his flesh until they were hanging by shreds of skin. Then they'd stop and Dean would stay as still as he could, hoping that this time the hooks would hold. But they never did and Dean would fall, screaming , until more hooks would swing down and bite into the flesh that had healed during his drop, jerking him to a stop. Dean wondered how far he'd have to fall to reach the dark part of hell. There had to be one right? A place where he could get a break from the glare and the brightness and the seeing what was coming for him all the time. _Coward. Want to hide in the dark and let the bastards sneak up on you? Fuck that! You man up, Winchester. _ Fucking voice in his head. All right then. Just don't think about the light.

Of course, once he'd decided to not think about the light,that was all he _could_ think about. He'd heard topside that it was a form of torture, shining bright lights in prisoner's eyes. Maybe that's what this was. Just another way the pit was fucking with him. It didn't seem harsh enough for that though, and it wasn't concentrated on his eyes. In fact, he couldn't tell _where _it was coming from. The shadows he saw were always above the forms, meaning the light should be below. When he carefully twisted his head to glimpse what was beneath him, it was light as far as he could see and outcroppings of rock cast shadows below them, which meant the light should be above. Whichever direction he looked in, he himself cast no shadow and that freaked him out more than the light did. Finally, when faced with the more immediate concern of movement of the chains, he decided that hell could do whatever it wanted with the light and maybe he'd think about it more after he'd healed from whatever was coming.

This time when the hooks pulled free Dean's drop was not halted by another set catching him. He went into a free-fall, plummeting into the abyss. His body slammed off outcroppings of burning rock and he desperately hoped that the old wives tale about dying before you hit the ground was true. He felt like he was falling forever and the rocks he hit on the way down broke his body so badly that, if he wanted to look on the bright side, it would already be hamburger by the time he slammed into whatever was at the bottom of this pit. Assuming there was a bottom and he wouldn't fall forever. But there was a bottom and he did slam into it and the pain was worse than anything he'd ever felt. _And _it was still glaringly bright. _And_ he'd neither died on the way down nor when he hit bottom. _Old wives tales sucked_.

The next thing Dean knew, he was spread- eagled, hanging naked from a metal frame in the middle of a tiny, rock walled room. The kind of tiny, rock walled room that should be dark and full of shadows, but _no._ Fucking light. The only things in the room were Dean and the rack and Dean wasn't showing up on any of the walls. Movement in the doorway brought Dean face to face with the first creature he'd met in hell that wasn't a rodent, reptile, or insect, although this ugly fucker could be a combination of all three. The creature walked toward him, shadow sharp and defined against the rock, and it took all Dean had to not shrink back in his restraints. In the hours before his death he'd seen the real forms of a lot of demons, but none, not even Lilith, had thrown off the kind of menace this one did.

It stopped in front of Dean and laid a clawed hand on his face. "Dean Winchester," it purred. "I've been waiting for you. Did you enjoy your time on the hooks? Because you'll be looking back on it fondly, I assure you. I am Alastair and I'll be your…companion.. for the rest of eternity."

Dean swallowed hard and forced his mouth into a smirk. "That's real nice, Alastair. Great name, by the way. But I usually like my companions to be a little less reptilian, so if you're going to be it, you think you could turn the lights down so I can pretend you're Angelina Jolie? Come on, you'd be doing Lucifer a favor, it must cost him a bundle to keep hell this well lit. Really, I'm surprised. Hell's reputation isn't that it's bright and homey, and I was really looking forward to seeing some hellfire."

Alastair's face twisted and it took Dean a moment to realize the sounds coming from his mouth were laughter. "Oh, Dean," he chuckled. "We are going to have so much fun. Though it's rather ironic that _you're_ bothered by the light." His hand traveled down Dean's abdomen, claws digging furrows into the flesh. "It _is_ a little, a lot actually, more _radiant_ here lately. It's a problem, no doubt about that." Claws punched through Dean's flesh, holding him in place as Alastair slammed a knife into his gut and slowly dragged it upwards. Alastair pulled Dean tight against him and whispered into his ear. "But it's a problem we're working on, and we'll solve it, don't worry about that. No matter how long it takes the light _will _go out."


End file.
